Saving Sweet Onions

The best ways to keep those giant sweet onions.

Caramelize

Pickle

Dehydrate

Caramelize

When there are too many onions, or find a great sale on them, its Caramelized Onion time. Fill a crock pot with sliced onions and allow them to slow cook overnight. When you wake up, you will discover the onions are transformed into a pricey gourmet treat I am too frugal to buy.

I started with several super sweet giant onions from the farmers market. Sweet onions have a short shelf life, so plan to freeze or dehydrate onions you will not use within a month. Super sweets should be refrigerated. Store onions in a cool, dry place. Sweet onions store for a maximum of three months, but storage types may last throughout the winter.

Caramelized onion pie with tomato and thyme. PBH

Once reduced to a pale golden layer of soft, fragrant onions, allow them to cool completely. Use these sweet, tender onions as a base for soups, vegetable broth, or the best Onion Soup ever made. Caramelized Onions are the base for onion and tomato pie.

When onions are cool, store extra onions in one cup portions in freezer bags or containers. Label and date packages. Later, drop the onions, frozen, into soup, veggie broth, chili, or stew.

Sweet Caramelized Onions are tasty enough to serve as a side dish topping. Just season with a splash of herb vinegar, vegan butter, thyme, salt pepper. Serve over toast, on roasted vegetables or green beans. or layer in a vegetable lasagna.

Slice onions and add to crock pot with 2 tablespoons of vegan butter and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Make the recipe your own by adding a splash of white wine, cracked pepper, a spring or two of fresh thyme.

Caramelizing onions is a great way to extend the sweet onion season. Whether you are a fan of sweet Texas onions, Walla Walla or the famous Vidalia, give this crock pot recipe a try. It also works with other white or yellow onions, they just aren’t as sweet.

If you have red onions to keep, try making a quick refrigerator pickle recipe. It’s the best thing that ever happened to a grilled or roasted veggie sandwich.

Pickle

Red onions become beautiful pink pickles. The cost of a jar of pickled red onions in the local deli sent me home to make my own in minutes for pennies. PBH

Dehydrate

To Dehydrate Onions

Another method of preserving a lot of onions is to dehydrate them. That intense onion flavor will boost onion flavor in French onion soup, and enliven any veggie burger.

When onions are completely dry, put them in the blender to make onion powder. It is a perfect, space-saving, long-term storage method for onions.

Rich onion soup served in bread bowls or topped with croutons. PBH

It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions. – Julia Child

Onion Soup Recipe

4 large sweet onions (about 3 pounds), thinly sliced*

2 tablespoons white wine or champagne vinegar

4 -6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced (your choice)

1 or two fresh springs of thyme (or 1/2 teaspoon dry)

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 cups of vegetable broth

slices of baguette to top soup bowls

1/2 cup shredded vegan cheese

Fresh chives or thyme leaves, for garnish

* any combo of mild or hot onions, leeks, shallots to equal 3 pounds

Instructions:

Heat a soup pot or dutch oven over medium high heat. Add onions and stirring often until onions begin to caramelize, about 15 minutes. Add wine and use a wooden spoon to scrape up any bits from the bottom of the pan. When the wine has evaporated, add garlic, thyme sprigs, salt, pepper and 6 cups of vegetable or mushroom broth (or water). Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer about 40 minutes and then remove thyme springs.

Ladle onion soup into oven-safe bowls. Top with a slice of baguette and spread each slice with 1 tablespoon of shredded vegan cheese. Place in a hot oven or under the broiler for 5 to 7 minutes, or until cheese is hot and golden.

Garnish with chives or green onions and serve.

The easiest way to grow alliums* and establish your own onion patch is with a starter pot of chives. Or, plant a clove or two of your kitchen garlic, or order onion starts from a commercial grower. The cheapest way to grow onions is to start them from seed.

*Allium is a genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants that includes hundreds of species, including the cultivated onion, garlic, scallion, shallot, leek, and chives.

Plant these little onions 1 or 2 inches apart. As they grow, thin the onions throughout the spring untill plants are properly spaced for bulbing. PBH

Grow an onion patch

To Grow

Onions prefer light, sandy, loamy soils, good drainage and full sun. They will grow in other types of soil, including clay. Green onions can be grown in partial shade.

Begin growing onions indoors from seed about six weeks before the last predicted frost date. Sow in flats, then transplant onions to 1″-2″ apart. Harden off onion seedling before transplanting outdoors to prevent sunscald.

I have my best luck growing onions from sets or starts. These baby onion plants are ready to plant. Even though sets are more expensive, they can be directly planted where the onions will grow. Or, plant them closer, thinning and using green onions until the remaining onions are properly spaced.

I buy onions and leek plants from Dixondale Farms. Start with well worked soil before planting. Onions are successful in the garden or in containers.

Spacing depends on the variety of onion. Generally, planting to 3″ – 4″ inches apart for green onions and thinning to at least 5-6 inches apart for bulbing onions. Proper spacing will affect the size of the mature onion.

Harvest onions a week after the tops have start to yellow and fall over

Most home cooks love having a year round supply of onions. They are easy to grow, take up little garden space and the varieties are endless. Onions are a recipe staple used in all cuisines of the world.

People eat sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas, leaves around the world. While the tubers are a good source of carbohydrates, the leaves are rich in vitamin B, ß­carotene, iron, calcium, zinc and protein. Young, tender leaves are a good addition to green salads. The edible flowers are a beautiful garnish.

Sweet potatoes are the earliest thing I grow. Just impale a sweet potato with toothpicks or skewers and plunge it into a glass of water. Soon you will have fresh greens at a time of year when leafy vegetables are in short supply.

Plus, you are growing sweet potato slips ready in time for planting season.

Checking on a tray of homegrown sweet potatoes, I discovered as few potatoes were sprouting. So, I decided to start growing them in water jars just to see something green.

Found in the storage bin like this. Sprouted and ready to grow ready to grow. PBH

For the past two years, I’ve ordered sweet potato slips from a certified grower. I recommend that you do that so you can try a variety of sweet potatoes and choose your favorite for taste and compatibility in you garden.

This year, three varieties will grow the full circle. Starting plants from 2017 sweet potato harvest to growing the 2018 sweet potato crop. The complete cycle for my homegrown organic potatoes.

Planting and growing a whole new crop from my own sweet potato.This years crop is White Hayman, Beauregard and, Carolina Ruby. Grown from my stock, but I will be trying more varieties next year.

These companies have delivered strong, healthy starts to my door at just the right time.

The entire sweet potato plant is edible: the tuber, leaves, stems and even the lovely flowers. PBH

Timing is everything when it comes to sweet potatoes. First, takes 6 weeks to get sweet potato slips that are ready to be planted in warm garden soil. Then, it may take 100 days or more to grow a crop. That’s a long growing season.

When the sprouts are about 5 to 6 inches long, it’s time to remove them from the potato. Grasp a sprout near the base and pull sideways. The sprout will pull away from the potato.

Place all the sprouts in another jar of water. In a very few days you will see little white roots begin to form and quickly grow from the sprouts. In about two weeks, the roots are ready to plant.

Pot them, or plant directly into the garden. Keep them well watered and weeded until established. Vines will grow quickly, smothering out weeds.

Growing my own sweet potato slips saves the cost of buying and shipping. But, I like the idea of completing the full growing cycle and being self-sufficient. It’s assuring to know where my food comes from.

Sweet Potato Greens

the new super food

Stems and leaves can be consumed as you grow slips, or harvested in the garden. PBH

Researchers report that sweet potato leaves are an excellent source of antioxidative polyphenolics, among them anthocyanins and phenolics, and are superior to other commercial vegetables. Harvest the top, tender first 4 inches of the vine for fresh eating raw.

Sweet potato leaves contain as many vitamins, minerals and other nutrients as spinach. The oxalic acid in sweet potato leaves is less than one ­fifth that of spinach. The leaves are not as bitter as chard or kale and they have a softer texture.

Eat sweet potato leaves as a vegetable, in noodles and breads and as a tea. Try cooking them like you do spinach or chard. Harvest greens about once a month, April through October.

Cooking tips: Saute the leaves with a little onion and garlic. Or, stir-fry and season with a little maple syrup.

Once giant sweet potatoes are cooked, they can be portioned out to refrigerate or freeze as a fast addition to any meal

Growing car parts: The Toyota Motor Company, in coopera­tion with Mitsui Company, is producing biodegradable plastics from sweet potatoes . Nearly 30 percent of Toyota’s plastic automobile parts will be replaced with biodegradable ones within ten years. Toyota Motor Company also envisions sweet potato use in the future as an energy source, much like alcohol and hydrogen.

Double the flavor and nutrition by making homemade vegetable soup with your own vegetable broth. PBH

Vegetable broth is easy to make, vitamin-rich and flavorful. Veggie broth at my kitchen turns out a little different every time, depending on what kitchen scraps are available. For example there are no tomatoes in the broth this time of year but plenty long-storing aromatics like onion, garlic, carrots and celery.

Flavorful vegetable broth can start with a garden bursting at the seems. As you process veggies for canning and freezing save the peelings, food scraps and leftovers to make a rich broth. PBH

Make it you own, adding what you like to eat. Start with what you have and take advantage of reduced-price and overstocked grocery store vegetables. I always have onion and garlic root tips and tops, the leaves and base of a celery stalk, carrot stubs, parsley and mushroom stems.

I always add some dried herbs, pepper flakes or peppercorns and a bit of salt. Or, leave out the salt and add a piece of nori. Wait until you using the broth in a recipe to adjust the salt, herbs and spices.

Add sautéed or roasted vegetables to a quart or two of water. Chopped and simmering produce will release its flavors and vitamins into the water creating a simple soothing broth. PBH

Make Vegetable Stock from Vegetable Scraps

As you prep vegetables, freeze the vegetable scraps. I keep a big zip-lock bag in the freezer and place all vegetable trimmings in the bag as you prepare meals. Peelings and tough stem are loaded with nutrients.

Use the tough stems and ribs of asparagus, kale, chard, and herbs. Root vegetable peels like onions, potatoes, and parsnips go in the bag. Use green onions, carrots, green beans, celery tops and tips.

Include those neglected veggies in the crisper. Adding onion skins and mushroom stems will create a darker, richer colored broth.

Pour the broth through a fine mesh strainer into a large heat-proof bowl or pot; discard solids. Let cooked vegetables slowly drain, but do not mash the vegetables, if you want a clear broth.

Strain cooked herbs vegetables out of the soup pot.Taste and adjust the seasoning. PBH

Use Fresh Whole Vegetables to Make Broth

If you are starting with fresh vegetables, scrub everything. Chop in consistent sizes, like one inch chunks. Drizzle with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Spread over a parchment lined cookie sheet and roast at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Stir vegetables, add whole cloves of unpeeled garlic and whole springs of herbs such as thyme or rosemary. Roast a total of 25 to 30 minutes. Stirring once or twice during cooking. If the vegetables are not roasted and fork tender, stir again and place in the oven for five-minute intervals until vegetables are soft.

Take care not to burn vegetables. The goal is to caramelize the vegetables. Caramelization brings out a nutty flavor and sweet, golden brown color.

Add vegetables to a large soup pot or dutch oven. Pour in 8-10 cups of cold water, bay leaves, whole springs of parsley, thyme and oregano (your choice). Bring to just boiling.

Reduce heat to slowly simmer, partly covered, for 45 minutes. Turn off heat. Allow the broth to cool until you can safely handle the next steps.

The strained broth is clear and golden. Dried mushrooms, onion peels, a teaspoon of miso or a bit of nori will bring the broth another layer of flavor.

Pour the broth through a fine mesh strainer into a large heat-proof bowl. Discard solids. Let cooked vegetables drain, but do not mash them, if you want a clear broth. Pressing the vegetables into the strainer will result in cloudy broth.

For the clearest broth, stain again using a colander lined with cheese cloth or coffee filters.

Using and Storing Vegetable Broth

• Add flavor and nutrients to any dish buy cooking with vegetable broth instead of water. Broth is an excellent soup base. Use it to cook risotto, couscous, or to simmer vegetables.

• Substitute broth for water in casseroles, baked rice, or pasta dishes. It is great for rehydrating vetetables, sun-dried tomatoes or dried mushrooms.

• Get Well. This nutrient dense flavor booster is just right if you have a sore throat during cold and flu season. Add the juice of a half lemon. As you begin to eat foods again, simmer a few noodles or favorite vegetables in the broth.

Keep broth refrigerated for up to 2 days, or freeze it. I freeze veggie broth in 1 cup or 2 cup portions and even freeze plastic quart containers of broth for soup base. Measure broth into individual containers and freeze. Remember, liquid expands when it freezes. After the cup size containers of broth are frozen, pop the broth blocks out of the container and store in a zip-lock freezer bag.

If you are feeling lucky, store in quart size zip-lock freezer bags. Be sure to leave room for expansion when the broth freezes. It boosts my confidence to put the filled quart zip-lock into a larger one gallon bag just until it freezes solid.

It costs nothing to make food taste richer. Vegetable broth is free flavor.

Vegetarians and vegans are sprouting up everywhere this spring!

As a lifetime gardener and resent vegan, I want to share my growing enthusiasm. Grab a package or two of seed and let’s get growing. Now is the perfect time to start salad greens, kale, radishes.

Seeds Want to Grow

Start seedling indoors to transplant in the spring garden in a few weeks.

Even if you don’t have a garden, many of us can find space on porch steps, a window sill, or a five gallon pickle bucket by the driveway. All you need is a sunny spot. Access to water is handy.

Give them a little soil in a sunny spot and seeds will grow. A 4′ x 4′ raised bed is ideal but any container or an abandoned leaky bucket will grow a few green sprouts. Containers don’t have to be fancy. Just make sure there is a drainage hole in the bottom.

Seedlings need light and well-drained soil

Grab some seed, it’s easy to find this time of year, and plant something, anything. Cool season crops, are vegetable plants that grow best in the spring. You can grow and harvest these early greens well before it’s warm enough to plant tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.

Grow your own salad. Try lettuce, spinach, radish. Plant a few seed and wait to plant a few more seed in a couple of weeks to stretch out your harvest. It’s OK if you plant to closely, just thin out the seedlings and eat them.

Now is a good time to start cool season herbs, like chervil. These fragile greens are hard to find and expensive to buy. They are the gourmet privilege of home gardeners.

Sow Many Seeds

As you thin peas and onions to proper spacing, add the thinned seedlings to the salad bowl or stir-fry. Photo pbh

There are lots of seeds in a packet. Plant a few and wait to plant a few more seed every two weeks all through the spring. Add those thinings to your salad bowl, they are loaded with nutrients.

Spring greens will tell you when it’s time to stop planting. Cool season crops bolt (go to seed) and turn bitter when it gets too hot. Save any remaining seed for a fall crop.

Seed Sources

I can’t resist the cheap seeds in the grocery and drug stores. Still, I buy most of my seed online from trusted seed companies with high germination rates.

Christmas is not over. Any woman who just gave birth knows that. This is just the beginning.

I don’t get why you shut down, turned off and boxed up Christmas. I choose to keep Christmas just a little longer. It’s now the 12 days of Christmas.

If you go to a Catholic church, you know Christmas is really the beginning. It’s the Grand Opening of the holiday, not the grand finale. Christmas hymns, we are just getting started.

It took days, weeks, maybe even months, of wrapping, baking and planning. There are still wishes to grant, prayer lists to be prayed, lonely folks to be called.

Think of all those gifts made, ordered, mailed, hidden, wrapped, returned, eaten. Sit down and write a thank you note or two. Even if a gift is not involved, say thanks to a helpful person, thoughtful neighbor, exhausted pizza delivery girl.

I’m still looking for that perfect Christmas gift I hid somewhere so I would never forget and that Jeff would never find.

Now, I hope he finds it.

You don’t just box up the nativity set, blow out the candles, fold up the tree and walk away. The star of the show just arrived. It’s still Christmas, for Christ’s sake!

If you are one of those Keep Christ in Christmas folks, do that now. Charities are still accepting donations, folks are still homeless, hungry, cold, and someone you know is thinking about committing suicide tonight.

Sweet Bell Pepper Finale

The name of this pepper is Purple Beauty. But I think it should be named Black Beauty. They are so pretty, I’ve left them on the plant until the last-minute. Growing profusely, bell peppers love the cooler days at the end of summer,

The sturdy stemmed plant grew to about 2 1/2′ tall with plenty of leaves to shade the peppers from the sun.

I grew one plant of several varieties this year, including red, yellow and chocolate-colored bell peppers. The purple beauty was the most prolific. Plant production really picked up after the temperatures cooled.

Bell peppers don’t have to be staked. The stakes are just a precaution because a sudden wind storm can snap a loaded pepper plant.

Purple Beauty – Capsicum annuum is thick-walled, mild flavored and juicy like all bell peppers. These shiny dark peppers turn green when cooked. Close your eyes and you can’t taste the difference between green, purple or red peppers.

The purple pepper is so dark it looks black.

All the peppers, large and small must be picked before the first fall frost.

If there are more peppers than can be used fresh, chop and freeze them for winter use. I chop or cut the bells into strips and freeze.

This assortment of frozen chopped peppers are perfect to add to soup, stew, chili and casseroles. Bell pepper strips are perfect to use in fajitas and stir-fry.

Heaps of peppers, a rainbow of colorful bells and every Anaheim and Poblano had to brought in before the first freeze. There are several ways to quickly preserve those peppers while they are still crisp and fresh.

I canned a couple of half pint jars of roasted red peppers. Most bell peppers are chopped and frozen. Chilies are roasted, peeled, chopped and frozen into ice-cube trays.

Tomato reviews

A big green Omar’s Lebanese tomato will ripen to a juicy pink, almost red color. The last tomato of the season is also the biggest one of the year. As the green tomatoes slowly ripen, we’ll have home-grown tomatoes for at least a week.

This is the day a gardener runs out to the garden gathering up the last vegetable remnants of the season. The kitchen counter is heaped with any tomato with a touch of color. They will ripen gradually, depending how ripe they are when picked.

Garden season is nearly done for me. There’s still sweet potatoes to dig and garlic to plant. The stars of the garden, tomatoes, herbs and peppers are finished in the garden.

Best Big Tomato

Omar’s Lebanese

Omar’s Lebanese is an heirloom variety from Omar Saab of Lebanon. This pink indeterminate grows big tomatoes on heavy vines that must be strongly supported or staked.

An heirloom grown by farmers in a Lebanese hill town, it is a juicy and meaty beefsteak type tomato. The regular leaf plant produces irregularly shaped 1-pound+ tomatoes mid to late season.

Some of the tomatoes in my garden suffered from blight. But Omar’s Lebanese was producing hefty fruit on healthy vines right up until the freeze.

Pick all tomatoes with a hint of color. Extend the tomato season by a week or two.

It’s been a great run, home-grown tomatoes June to October.

Best Dwarf Tomato

Bush 506 Container Tomato

Bush 506 is drought tolerant and blemish free.

Bush 506 dwarf plant, full-sized tomatoes.

The earliest tomato and one of the latest tomatoes on the deck is the Bush 506 Container Tomato. This dwarf bush tomato plant will only reach 18-24″ tall and has a medium-large sized red juicy fruits.

They are great for container growing as the plants stay compact and have thick, upright stems producing 9 oz. fruits. Bush 506 is a good choice for dwarf size plants that produces full-sized tomatoes.

Although larger than cherry or grape tomatoes, cocktail tomatoes are a smaller variety tomato. These round, red, blemish free cocktail tomatoes have a good sweet/acid balance.

The compact determinate plants produce fruit a week earlier than comparison plants. They thrived in the planter boxes on a deck in the full sun. Red Racer is a great choice for small spaces and container gardens.

Fun & Tasty Little Snack Peppers

These little Spanish peppers are usually fried in oil, salted and served as tapas. I first tried them in a restaurant and soon began a search for seed. They are easy to find in many seed catalogs.

Padrón Peppers are picked when about 1 1/2″ long.

They are cone-shaped and picked when very small, at about 1″ or 1 1/2″ long. They are pictured here with medium-sized red bell peppers for size comparison.

Playing with your food

Eating these snack peppers is a great garden party game. It’s “Spanish roulette,” nine out of ten peppers are mildly flavored. One in ten is a taste explosion in you mouth.

Size is not an indicator of heat.

You won’t know until you eat the pepper whether it is hot or mild. The look or size of the Padrón peppers offer no clues. The weather or time of the growing season is not a heat indicator.

I grew Padrón peppers on the deck in 5-gallon buckets and in the garden along side other hot and sweet peppers. Next year, I’ll grow more plants because I love the taste of these tiny peppers.

recipe

Blistered Padrón Peppers

1/2 pound of Padrón peppers

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Course sea salt

Heat a large skillet over high heat, add oil. Add peppers to the hot oil, tossing to stir. Cook for about 3 or 4 minutes or, until skins are blistered and peppers are softened. Transfer to a bowl, sprinkle with salt, and toss to coat.

Sizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with salt, the flavor of these delicious peppers is down right tasty. Course salt will add not only flavor but also some texture to this simple summer appetizer.